"Hush," Sebastien said. He brushed her cheek with cool fingers. "You do not need to justify yourself to me."
* * *
"Was she lying?" Jack asked, in the darkness.
"I don't believe so." Sebastien did not sleep. But he occupied his pajamas nonetheless, and lay on Jack's bunk beside him, listening to Jack breathe, inches away in the quiet darkness. "So what do we know, then?"
"That we can cross Korvin and LeClere off our list of suspects." Jack spoke very softly, just for Sebastien's ears, both of them aware of Mrs. Smith sleeping peacefully on the other side of the doped fabric wall. Faintly, distantly, Sebastien could hear Hollis Leatherby snoring.
"Unless they did it together."
"Then no-one has an alibi."
"Not even you."
"Alas," Jack said. He shifted under the covers, leaning his head on Sebastien's shoulder. "We know Mrs. Smith is an inveterate eavesdropper. We know Captain Hoak—or somebody feigning his handwriting—made an inconsistent entry in the logbook. We know Mme. Pontchartrain disappeared between drinks and breakfast. We can speculate that Korvin and Meadows had some sort of prior arrangement to travel together, or that Corvin and LeClere did—aside from the tour group, I mean. Five colonials and one European, that's a bit odd, isn't it? Is that something you can inquire after with Mrs. Smith?"
"I thought you didn't approve of Mrs. Smith."
"She's just your type," Jack said, feigning placidity. "And I know very well that we can't get along in America, just the two of us, without friends."
"You are a practical soul, dear boy," Sebastien said, and turned to kiss Jack's forehead. "We also know that Beatrice Leatherby has some agenda that involves incriminating Korvin."
"Or Mademoiselle LeClere."
"Just so. Extending that last point, we know that there is some mysterious tension between the Leatherbys and the other passengers. We know Korvin úr may very well be something other than he seems, but that he is not of the blood."
"We know Miss Meadows knows that you are." Sebastien could hear Jack's frown in his voice.
"And we know that this dirigible is currently host to any number of unsavory relationships."
"Is that so?" Jack asked, propping himself on his elbows, his silhouette barely visible in the dim light that slipped around the edges of the lampshade.
"Unfortunately," Sebastien answered, sitting up, "it appears to be a motif. You should sleep, Jack."
Jack caught his wrist. "Madame's papers appeared to have been riffled. Hurriedly. But you said no one but she and Mlle. LeClere had been in the cabin."
Sebastien nodded. "I did, didn't I? I wonder if I could have been mistaken."
"Anise oil confuses bloodhounds," Jack said, slyly.
Sebastien snorted.
"We also now know that Madame Pontchartrain was an opium addict."
"Such harsh terms for a little genteel laudanum use." And then Sebastien stopped, freed his right hand, and used it to stroke Jack's curls, thoughtfully. "Jack, when we searched Madame Pontchartrain's room—"
Jack stiffened. "No laudanum bottle."
"Indeed," Sebastien answered. "And isn't that a curious thing?"
* * *
Long before first light, when Jack was sleeping soundly, Sebastien dressed and slipped from the cabin. This time, the lack of doors that locked and fastened abetted him. He paused in the corridor, listening for activity, and heard only even breathing and faint snores. Slowly, he descended the stairs, which neither creaked nor settled under his weight, and paused at the bottom landing.
Pretend you are a murderer, Sebastien thought, and permitted himself a smile he would never have worn around a mortal, friend or foe. It even felt unpleasant on his face.
If I wanted to murder someone, though—
No. He turned back, and regarded the stairs, lit green by emergency lights. Sebastien was considerably stronger and more agile than a human man, and he could not have maneuvered even a small unconscious woman down those stairs without waking the ship. The forward stairs were no better—and closer to the occupied sleeping chambers. If she had come this way, she had not been dragged.
Which meant that if Mme. Pontchartrain had not gone up, into the airframe—and the search there had revealed no sign—then, barring sorcery, she had come down under her own power.
And, also barring sorcery, Mlle. LeClere had lied again, because if she had left Mme. Pontchartrain drugged insensate, then there was no way Mme. Pontchartrain could have gotten down these stairs.
In the absence of a Crown Investigator or a Zaubererdetektiv, Sebastien found he must reluctantly shelve the idea of sorcery—at least until they made landfall in New Amsterdam. Where, it happened, there was a Detective Crown Investigator, the most notorious of the scant three the